No DEI for my first-grader!

Did you have a good weekend? I didn’t.

Anyway, top of the news today is *sigh* Conroe’s Brandon Creighton is back at it again with SB12 and SB1565, introduced today. From the Texas Tribune:

SB 12, dubbed by Creighton the Parental Bill of Rights, would make it illegal for Texas school districts to factor in diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring and employment decisions. It would prevent schools from developing policies, programs and training that reference race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation. It would require districts to create policies for disciplining employees who engage in or assign DEI-related tasks to others. And it would ban classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.

SB 1565 builds on that proposal by allowing parents to submit complaints to principals about alleged DEI violations and requiring school officials to offer parents an explanation of their response to the complaint.

It’s more of the same sludge that they keep churning out to prevent first graders from ever seeing a pride flag. And then creating MORE parental interference with “alleged DEI violations,” which is going to create even more stress on teachers to be extremely careful not to offend anyone by teaching the realities of slavery or industrialization or authoritarianism and all of that.

The hearing on this bill will be 10 a.m. Thursday, along with a bunch of other bad bills, like SB371, which makes it harder for Texas students to access sex education, putting them at greater risk of unintended pregnancy, STDs, and non-consensual sex. Planned Parenthood Texas Votes has put out a call for people to testify:

Should be a wild hearing.

Other hearings of note this week:

Health & Human Services - 8 a.m. Wednesday for hearings on:

• SB 25 Kolkhorst Relating to health and nutrition standards to promote healthy living.
• SB 314 Hughes Relating to prohibiting certain food additives from being included in free or reduced-price meals provided by school districts.

Business & Commerce - 8 a.m. Thursday:

• SB 6 King | et al. Relating to electricity planning and infrastructure costs for large loads.
• SB 815 Schwertner Relating to use of artificial intelligence in utilization review conducted for health benefit plans.

Something is afoot with the Texas Lottery, and it may go away entirely this session.

In the past three years, Lotto Texas has seen two of its biggest-ever jackpots claimed. In both instances, the winning ticket was processed in a boiler-room-like processing facility attached to a noticeably unbusy store affiliated with an online ticket company.

In 2023, Winners Corner was listed as the state’s busiest ticket retailer, processing about $350,000-worth of Texas lottery sales every day of the year. … Winners Corner is owned by Jackpocket, which was acquired last year for $750 million by the Massachusetts-based DraftKings.

It all sounds really sleazy and I agree with the Republicans who want to shut it all down, but open to other opinions.

Briscoe Cain can’t tweet the word “dick.”

I doubt this is sound self-defense advice. I doubt this guy is handling his gun correctly. It’s all just dumb, macho bullshit that Briscoe loves to peddle on his social media in lieu of doing any real work.

Lastly today I’d like to point out this piece on something called texasfootball.com, which is not a place I’d normally find myself.

In my mind, what makes Texas high school football special is the sense of community — neighbors rallying together around a common cause on a Friday night, cheering on their kids from their school in their town. The magic of Texas high school football is in all the things around the field on a Friday night, in addition to the excellence on it.

The voucher program - which would inherently incentivize some students to leave public schools - threatens to splinter those communities, further dividing them into haves and have-nots. The magic of Friday night lights would be dimmed, because suddenly, we're not all on the same team anymore.

I grew up in a Friday Night Lights world in Deer Park, Texas. I was in the marching band and became drum major my senior year. It was my life. I loved every single ritual of that experience.

It started with summer band every year. We’d start coalescing as a unit a couple of weeks before the school year started, when the school campus was empty and the practice fields were parched during another awful Texas summer. We learned or remembered the fundamentals of marching under relentless sun, learned to move as a unit, got to know the new people, made or unmade crushes and friendships, learned the program music and the outdated pop songs we’d play in the stands. I loved those weeks of quiet before everything bloomed.

Once school started, we had practice every day (I think? I can’t remember now) after school. Still so hot out on our practice field — or worse, the parking lot. It would slowly come together under the steely eyes and unsmiling jaw of our band director, who wore Sansabelt shorts, a deep tan and perfect hair that never moved. I adored that man. His name is Gary Hebert, and as far as I can tell, he’s still there.

Of course, the marching band wouldn’t exist without the football team, and I’m sure the culture around high school football has become more toxic and capitalistic. I suppose I sometimes cared about the football part of it, but they were mostly assholes to the band. Still, we were a vital part of an ecosystem that became the only experience that could shake my extreme anxiety and panic attacks that had plagued me since I was five. I was really good at leading others and being a part of a team and playing the flute.

Every Friday night we’d go out in front of our entire community — or someone else’s a few miles away — and do our halftime performance of Cats or Willow or West Side Story or Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid for our cheering families, having no idea if we were performing high art or low art, and it simply not mattering. We were performing art together — as friends, as enemies, as strangers. All from the same burg, children placed there by forces out of our control, getting along just long enough to put on an intricate, sweaty dance on Astroturf while wearing thick polyester on, at best, a 70-degree night.

Time moves on. The world changes. But I really hope that high school marching bands can continue to exist in this changing educational landscape. It changed my life. I didn’t continue into college, though I tried. It didn’t feel the same as those revelatory years of fighting my fears to be part of a team.

Three Good Things:

1. Went for a walk with a friend, which is a nice thing to do.
2. The orange calcium gummies I have to take now because I’m on high-dose vitamin D taste like Starbursts (the other colors do NOT.)
3. I slept terribly last night, but every time I woke up again I felt my little dog curled up next to me, keeping warm, and that always gives me a warm hug.